


Stories of the Second Self: Van Winkle Effect

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [154]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:33:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Coming out of a medically induced coma, Heather Lewis hears conversation regarding her status. First, spoken to by a hospital counselor, Heather learns of one shocking change after another regarding Alter Idem. Then, the Fae physician has to inform Heather of her new life.
Series: Alter Idem [154]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Van Winkle Effect

"Look, she's been under a medical coma the entire time," she heard someone say.

Her eyes were closed, and she was only partially aware, just enough so to believe she was coming out of sleep.

"I understand that, but this status change means we can no longer justify keeping her under," a woman's voice said, "so as her attending physician, and after notifying her family, I'm bringing her out."

"You realize the shock she'll receive on seeing your face first?" the other voice said, a woman or man, she couldn't make out.

"Yes, I'm aware," the woman replied, "If you want to address her once she's fully conscious, okay, but she'll be coming to any moment now, if she hasn't already."

"Can I speak to her family first?" the other voice asked, now recognizably a man.

"They're in the waiting area," the woman replied.

"Thank you, Dr. Golshiri," the man said.

After a few minutes she remembered her name as Heather, but didn't recall going to bed. When she shifted slightly in her laying position the sensation of long fibrous, but soft strands under linens accompanied a rustle and the sense of more firm bars or beams behind them.

Then Heather heard steps against a hard floor into the room, and she opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.

"Heather Lewis?" the man's voice asked, "I'm Carl Visser."

Heather looked down to see a man in a casual sweater but a gray shirt and tie under that. His light brown hair was trimmed short, on top, but must have been long in the back and styled to have hair extend out the sides, as best she could tell.

"Where am I?" Heather needed to know.

"Can you tell me what you remember last?" Carl traded question for question.

"No," Heather answered, feeling a surge of trepidation.

Had she suffered a heart attack? Maybe an aneurysm? She didn't know.

"What is the last thing you do remember?" Carl asked.

"Uhh," Heather struggled to recall anything from before, and noticed the two rises of linens she had felt covering something with the rough outline of ironing boards. He also hadn't felt sensation in her legs or lower arms, and then Heather's heart raced at the thought she might be paralyzed. "What's wrong with me?"

"Dr. Golshiri will talk to you about that," Carl said, holding up his hand to her, "However, I've been assured that you are on the road to recovery. There are some drugs still in your system, so that might be why you feel numbness."

"So I'm not paralyzed?" Heather desperately bid an answer from him.

"Not to my understanding, no," Carl assured, "Your family is here and they just got some very good news about you. Can you tell me about your family?"

"I think I remember arguing with my son, Elias," Heather recalled, and then more of that moment came back, "He came home late and I yelled at him. I think that's the last thing that happened."

"Yes, that's when he mentioned," Carl confirmed, "He's the one who called nine-one-one on your behalf."

"I heard some talking as I woke up," Heather said, "What's going on?"

"You've been in this hospital for quite a while," Carl phrased.

"Weeks?" Heather asked.

"Longer than that," Carl hinted.

"Months?" Heather's dread build up again.

"Yes, thirty-eight months," Carl at last admitted.

A new fear of what medical bills would look like put a lump in Heather's throat. "Oh god no!"

"You may not be aware of this, but there are a number of other changes that you'll discover," Carl teased out at a pace that let Heather know he was helping prep her to adjust.

"What kind of changes?" Heather pressed.

"One thing at a time," Carl warned, and then turned his head enough for Heather to see that the hair from his neck actually grew out of his neck rather than being long from the scalp.

"Where's Elias?" Heather pleaded, "Where's Ben and Dalia?"

"Now?" Carl said toward the door out of Heather's view.

"I have to talk to her before I let her family in here," the woman's voice from earlier replied, "And I can tell she wants to see them as soon as possible, so yes, now."

"Just...," Carl raised his hands toward the woman in haste, "one moment please," and then he returned his attention. "Okay, so Dr. Golshiri is going to talk to you, but when you see her just remember to breathe slow and deep, okay?"

"What?" Heather uttered, "Why?"

"Um," Carl was struggling how to say it quick but careful. "Well, she's not human, at least not anymore. She's a remarkable physician, so I want to emphasize you are, and have been in excellent hands, but don't be alarmed when you see her."

"Uh, okay--," Heather trailed off in her uncertainty.

"Dr.?" Carl said toward the door and stood to vacate the chair at the end of Heather's bed.

The next set of steps made Heather think of high heels, but the sound wasn't quite right. More of a clop, and then she saw the white-coat-clad woman she'd been hearing when first waking up.

The antlers were the biggest shock, and Heather's jaw dropped as she also noticed that the woman's back-pointed ears. The bridge of her nose, when she faced Heather, was wide and her forehead more robust about the temples. Her neck muscles also looked stronger.

"Heather Lewis," she addressed, "I'm Dr. Ariel Golshiri."

"Oh my god," Heather breathed, staring in shock. "Wha.. what are you?"

"You haven't been conscious for thirty-eight months, as Carl Visser as informed you," Dr. Golshiri reminded, "So you're not aware of all the emergent phenomena that is now referred to as Alter Idem. People like myself are most often referred to as Fae, though I understand it that other cultures around the country and world have their own terms. My traits started to emerge a little less than three years ago, which is later than most people. There are still human beings around, in fact four out of every five people. However, the rest are in one of five new demographic groups."

Heather's eyes went to her own dark brown arms laying at her sides, and then she looked back to Dr. Golshiri. "Do you mean like faeries?"

"Dr. Golshirit tilted her head somewhat as she looked sideways, and eventually nodded. "I suppose that's an apt comparison, though we're not the ones with the wings. You'll find pretty much everything in Cincinnati has changed, and we only recently came out from under federal control."

Heather squinted at that. "What do you mean, federal control?"

"Social order broke down there for a couple years, but they eventually got things calmed down," Golshiri informed, "Some people took this news less positively than others and a great deal of violence broke out. Things are stable, more or less, but civil enough that troops are no longer needed. Your husband's Guard unit had been in full muster for most of those two years."

"Is he okay?" Heather asked, her mind coming back to her husband and kids.

"He's fine, and his health plan is covering enough of your stay that you don't have to worry about that," Golshiri allaying two different fears in one statement, "We've been keeping him and your children up to date in your medical condition."

"What happened to me?" Heather asked.

"You appeared to have suffered an arterial blockage that we call Intracranial Stenosis," Dr. Golshiri revealed, "In your case it was severe enough that, to prevent severe harm, we kept you in a medically induced coma. That's not the common treatment, but in the case of your collapse we suspected physical traumatic brain injury atop the intracranial stenosis."

"Carl said that I was going to recover, though." Heather's forehead broke out in fear that Carl Visser had been wrong.

"It's true, though you have some time yet before full recovery," Dr. Golshiri explained, "I and other physicians on your case concluded that with some unexpected hormonal changes it was necessary to end your medically induced coma sooner than we planned."

"What kind of hormonal changes?" Heather didn't think she was old enough for menopause, thinking that hardly over three years passed.

"Alter Idem brought about a number of peculiarities," Dr. Golshiri was gradual in her filling Heather in. "As it happens to be, I specialized in some of those medical phenomena, and so your case came to me."

Heather looked to Ariel Golshiri's forehead, and then Heather weakly reached up to her own only to find no antlers there.

"No," Dr. Golshiri confirmed with a soft laugh, "You don't have antlers," and then returned to a more serious tone, "However, your demographic condition is maybe more extreme."

"What do you mean?" Heather then remembered the linens covering the things at her sides.

"First, may I test for tactile sensation?" Golshiri asked.

Heather nodded, and Golshiri put on a light blue medical glove before pulling the sheet up enough to expose Heather's shins.

Golshiri ran a light finger along one shin. "Did you feel that?"

"Yes," Heather nodded, heaving her relief at physical proof she wasn't paralyzed. "Yes, I did, thank god."

Then Golshiri took a soft hold of Heather's hand. "And that?"

"Yes," Heather replied.

Then Golshiri went over to the linen covered curvature to Heather's right and gave a light squeeze. "And that? Can you feel that?"

"Oh my god, what is that?" Heather jolted from the sensation.

"Did you feel it?" Dr. Golshiri asked again.

"Yes, but...," Heather couldn't believe she felt contact from something not part of her body.

"Okay, I'm going to remove this now so you can see what you felt," Dr. Golshiri advised, "Are you ready."

First, Heather swallowed hard before assenting with a nod.

Heather watched and heard the fabric pulled away. Under that appeared a glass-like distortion what was behind the shape. Golshiri lifted it, and immediately Heather realized it felt like another arm.

"What happened to me?" Heather cried out.

"It's your right wing, Heather," Golshiri revealed, "We can talk about the specifics whenever you're ready, but you have have left and right fully functional wings. The scapula, the shoulder bone has a part we call the Acromion. In you this has a bifercation, that is it's branched. With that you have an anterior clavicle, that is your front side, which connects your arms, and a posterior clavicle for your wings."

"Why can't I see it?" Heather wondered, realizing her sight was acute as ever, and that even when first waking her vision wasn't blurry at all.

"It's the feather-like covering which does that," Dr. Golshiri explained, "It's not completely understood how, but we have some pretty good ideas. We say feather-like, because the traits only superficially similar to birds. For instance, your wings have rudimentary traces of all five fingers, whereas in birds there are only signs of three. Your bones aren't hollowed out like birds, but they're still as light.

"You know how bones have that spongy look because of pockets?" Golshiri prompted, and went on at seeing Heather comprehend. "In your case that architecture is more efficiently formed so that it weighs less than normal human bone but handles the same stresses, or more in the case of specific bones."

Heather looked down at herself, and realized her chest was larger even though her breasts seemed smaller than she last remembered. "My boobs shrank?"

Golshiri smiled to herself and then leaned over to lay a consoling hand atop Heather's hand. "An unfortunate side effect, but the trade off is having chest and shoulder muscles three times stronger than before. All of this happened to you while you were unconscious, and is connected to changes in your Pineal Gland. It's a gland that usually is nestled between our optic nerves. In your case it has fused with them, with functioning neural fibers spreading out from there, and has a more pronounced affect on your hormonal balance. That's why we had to bring up back sooner than your original recovery prognosis."

"Can I fly?" Heather imagined the possibility, but wasn't sure if she'd enjoy it or be terrified.

"That's going to come much later in your recovery," Golshiri said, "Right now, the objective is getting you to be able to sit upright and self-supporting, then we'll move on to getting you on your feet again."

"What other non-human people are out there?" Heather suddenly wondered.

"There're people like you, there are some like myself, and Carl's demographic," Golshiri started to explain.

"Who are Carl's people?" Heather asked, remembering his hair.

"Werewolves," Golshiri matter-of-factly stated, "Not too long ago I conducted a child birth for a giant couple. And there are vampires."

"What?" Heather blurted out, having a more frightful image of social collapse than she had before.

"They have laws controlling all that, and some street-level changes to offer nighttime safe spaces," Golshiri assured, "but those five groups, including angels like yourself, are-- more or less, coming to terms with living together."

"Can I see my family now?" Heather pleaded.

Golshiri rose up and offered another caring smile. "I'll go bring them in."

Heather considered how to apologize to her son, Elias for leaving him with her last words being screamed out, and, if she could, give him, Dalia and her husband, Ben all a hug.


End file.
